Never Bet Against a Lucky Bastard
by QueenTigris
Summary: Gaara made the mistake of losing, now he must pay the price as Naruto flaunts his bragging rights. Not yaoi. Unless you think that way. Behold, Kankurou has yet another sexual identity crisis.


**Disclaimer: For fear of wounding myself with my own acerbic wit, I say only this: not mine! **

**Never Bet Against a Lucky Bastard**

* * *

It was a strange day for Team Seven. Because something was rather off. 

First of all, Naruto was twenty minutes later than Kakashi upon arrival. Though it wasn't uncommon for the blonde to be the last of the genin to reach the bridge, to be a total of two hours and twenty minutes late was unprecedented for him.

"So glad you could join us, Naruto." Kakashi surveyed the boy with a critical eye.

"Did you sleep through your alarm, baka?" Sakura, her patience already worn thin waiting for Kakashi, hadn't appreciated waiting for her teammate as well.

The second oddity of the day: Naruto did neither of the two things he would normally do in such a situation; these being that he either did something stupid with an idiotic grin on his face or flew into an unnecessary rage.

He just stood there, blinking slowly at the three as if he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. "I got lost..."

"Baka!" the pink-haired kunoichi fired back. "Do you expect us to believe that? Even Kakashi comes up with better excuses!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow as Naruto remained silent. "Dobe, what's with the new outfit?"

This was the third oddity, for some obscure reason Naruto had decided to forgo the usual orange jumpsuit for an ensemble of black and mesh and leather straps, as if Naruto's fashion sense had done a complete 180 overnight.

The blonde's crystalline eyes flashed as Sasuke addressed him. "Everything I have that's orange is in the wash."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the exchange. "Well, that's too bad, since I was just starting to get used to the damage all that orange did to my retinas." Kakashi continued as Naruto shrugged. "Anyway, we don't have any missions today. Sooo... we'll spend today training! We'll start with a friendly spar, ne?"

Sasuke smirked.

Naruto raised his hand. "Ah, I'm not feeling well today, can I just meditate instead?"

The three were taken aback for a moment by the unusual clarity with which the boy spoke before the full implications of what he had said hit them.

"Wait... WHAT? Naruto! You've never taken a day off from training since... ever!"

Naruto shrugged as Sakura stared at him incredulously.

Sasuke sneered cockily. "Dobe, you can't even sit still for five minutes, what makes you think you can for an entire day?"

A muscle in Naruto's cheek twitched and his eyes burned cold as he scowled at the brunette. "Call me that one more time... and I won't hesitate to scrape out your insides with a rusty soup spoon."

Sasuke frowned, unused to such a form of hostility from the blonde. Usually he would have yelled a stupid insult at him by now.

"Naruto!" reprimanded Sakura. "What has gotten into you?"

Naruto twitched at that and supreme annoyance passed over his face at whatever internal battle he was having. Then he forced himself to grin at the team and say, "Can we get ramen for lunch?"

What really scared Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi at that moment, was how crazed Naruto looked when he grinned like that.

Meanwhile, in Suna...

"Yuck! What the hell is this?" Gaara threw the mug across the room, splattering valuable paperwork with bitter liquid in the process.

"Um... you don't like it?" Temari was half-afraid the disgust on her little brother's face would turn into violence. "I made it how you've always liked it..."

Temari jumped back as Gaara roared, "I hate coffee!"

Now, this was a very odd thing for Gaara to say, as Temari happened to know that coffee was one of the few things that he loved.

"Um... do you want something else?"

"Ramen?"

Temari blinked. She couldn't be sure whether she was hallucinating or not... but it looked like her brother was looking up at her with big, round, turquoise puppy dog eyes, complete with pouting lip.

"Um..." she wished she had a camera, because _damn it_ her little brother was adorable when he wanted to be. "Sure...?"

She jumped with surprise again as the little redhead yelled a "yatta!" and did a little happy dance in his super-awesome-swivel-Kazekage chair.

With such a sudden change in Gaara's behavior, she started to worry for his sanity. Especially since he seemed to choose today to reveal he had something that _wasn't_ red or black in his wardrobe. Who knew Sabaku no Gaara owned an orange trench coat? Much less that he'd wear it... along with a fluorescent pink T-shirt that proclaimed in white sparkly bubble letters, "Kiss me, I'm a ninja princess."

Temari refused to even think about the grayscale plaid miniskirt. She was afraid her brain would explode.

"I want five bowls of Suna's best miso ramen, and five pork, and five beef, and..." Gaara paused in his ordering to think. "And, uh, those little pastry things with meat or cream in the middle? I want a couple of boxes of those."

Temari nodded, straining to smile, and crept out of the Kazekage's office before her little brother's sudden bout of uncharacteristic... um... gayness (in both senses of the word, perhaps) gave her an aneurysm.

"Did you find anything?" She asked when she met with her other— thankfully sane— brother in the hall.

Kankurou shook his head. "If he is hiding anything, it's really well hidden." He paused, looking faintly perturbed before continuing. "But, uh... he does have this really creepy fain-shrine-thing to Uzumaki Naruto in the back of his closet."

Temari raised an eyebrow. "But no drugs?"

Kankurou shook his head again.

"Well," Temari slapped her brother on the shoulder. "All that's left is to ask him then!" She grinned.

Kankurou spun around to retort that there was no way in _hell_ that he was going to confront his little brother about his possible overdose on anti-depressants, only to find his sister was already gone.

"Damn it..." he grumbled as he cautiously entered the Kazekage office. "Hey, Gaara..."

"Hello, big brother!" Kankurou winced. Usually taciturn and soft-spoken, Gaara seemed to have lost control over his volume level.

"Hey... um..." he wasn't looking at his little brother's legs. Really. Not only was he straight, but he was _totally_ against incest. But damn... since when did his little brother have curves like that?

Kankurou mentally slapped himself. "Ah... I have a question for you, Gaara, it may seem a little personal, and... um, please don't kill me if you get mad?" he pleaded in a tiny voice. Just because Gaara was all happy sunshine today didn't mean he couldn't turn into his old, murderous self in a split second.

"Ask away!" Gaara grinned at him, continuing to spin in his swivel chair.

"Um..." he fidgeted. "Gaara... are you on drugs?— I mean, it's perfectly okay if you are, it's just it'd be nice to know, yeah?"

Gaara stopped the chair to stare at him blankly.

Kankurou blathered on helplessly. "Ah, I don't know, but, uh, have you been taking anti-depressants, maybe? I mean, it's great if you're trying to be happy, but—" he stopped as he realized that Gaara was grinning at him foxily with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Drugs? Why... yes." The redhead drawled. "Yes, I'm on drugs. Lots of drugs."

Kankurou blinked. "What? Oh... okay."

Gaara leaned forward across his desk. "In fact, I think I need to see a therapist!" he needed emphatically as Kankurou stared at him. "Yes, I need help. In fact... I think I'll start tomorrow. Get me the best shrink in town!"

Kankurou nodded slowly.

"Schedule an appointment for tomorrow! Go on! Waste no time!" Gaara made shooing motions with his hands.

Kankurou backed away slowly. He was genuinely scared that his brother had lost his mind.

And his little brother was a druggie. Maybe _that_ explained the unhealthy rings around his eyes. His gourd was full of crack!

Gaara chuckled to himself after the puppet-nin had left. He attempted to compose himself as Temari entered a minute later.

The kunoichi gave him an odd look as the Kazekage snorted into his hand. "Here's the ramen and stuff that you asked for." She set down the tower of trays that she had brought on the desk where there was no paperwork.

Gaara grinned and rubbed his palms together. "Ah! It smells so good'ttebayo!"

The blonde blinked. 'Dattebayo' was Naruto's word.

Gaara slapped a hand over his mouth as soon as he realized what he had said. He smiled guiltily through his fingers. "Heh, Naruto must be rubbing off on me."

Temari raised an eyebrow. If personalities changed through osmosis, she wondered if Naruto was in Konoha right now with a scowl on his face.

... As a matter of fact, he was.

'_Damn it, Naruto_,' the boy thought to himself, scowling at his whiskered appearance in the mirror. '_If you mess up anything important... I better not get back tomorrow to find out you blew the negotiations with the Council_.'

But it wouldn't be until later that he found out that the world's most surprising ninja could do far worse for the Kazekage's reputation.

Needless to say, that was the last time Gaara agreed to play poker with Uzumaki Naruto. For an idiot, he had incredible luck.

* * *

**A/N: XD Random, yes. Makes sense? Not sure. I don't even know where this goes in the timeline. Let's just say that Gaara's Kazekage and Sasuke never left. There, now it makes sense.**

**Now, review like crazy! My plot bunnies need reviews to eat and fat plot bunnies means more little oneshots like this! Feed the bunnies!**


End file.
